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It’s the busy season for me and my fellow family photographers. The weather is more comfortable for outdoor sessions, and the organized ones among us have already gotten their family portraits taken for cards and presents! (Confession: I do not YET belong to that group.) Here are just some of the happy clans I’ve been lucky enough to work with lately.

I heard some folks at the grocery store grumbling about the Christmas items already on display. I used to think it was silly, too. But the busier life gets, the more I understand. If I don’t start early, it may not happen! Even though I’ve been planning for this season for months, I still am shocked to realize that Thanksgiving is in TEN days!

And, are you sitting down? Christmas is 41 short days away!

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Here are few highlights from one of my recent Atlanta Mini Sessions.

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Forget the terrible twos. In my house, three is the age of reckoning. This one is pushing all kinds of envelopes and wrestling with emotions that she can not understand, much less describe for those of us outside her brain.

At three and one quarter, she is funny, and charming, and, well, funky. And I mean that as a high compliment. Her days are stream-of-consciousness musical theater. She is sweet and fiery, and you never know which you might get at any given moment. My VC. She’s one of a kind.

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A fun family I spent a recent cool morning with, in one of Atlanta’s great old neighborhoods. I lived there myself, a decade ago.

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Last part in the series! Check out the first two posts below or here.

The first six tips should be getting you closer to taking less and better photos. These last few will encourage you to make the most of your images AND the moments which you are trying to capture in the first place.

7. Print more.

There are many great uses for digital images (Facebook!), but I think that we still want to have those keepers that we print, display, give as gifts, and that make us smile every time we pass them in the hallway or on the mantle.  Take the time to get your favorites printed, framed, and up on those walls and shelves. And please get them printed by a quality lab. A bad print can ruin a great photo, and that is tragic. A print should be beautiful – good color, quality paper, thoughtful presentation – the day it is made and just as good one hundred years from now. I recommend Phototechnika locally, and Mpix.com online. Lately, I have been obsessed with Pinterest. You can find great inspiration there for ways to display photos in your home. Join me there at http://pinterest.com/jenmenphoto/, but be warned: it is highly addictive for the visually minded.

8. Don’t miss the moment, in the moment.

Someone I love once told me that her dad missed most of her childhood, even though he has it all recorded on VHS. Don’t be that parent who is so caught up in getting the photo, or recording the video, that they forget to cherish the moment as it is actually happening. Get a few photos for posterity, then put that box down and live it. Being a more confident photographer will help you to do just that.

 Movie night with my daughter and her animal friends. It was too cute not to take a photo, but I would have missed so much more if I had not taken the time to snuggle and enjoy the way she cackles unabashedly at the funny parts. 

9. Read your manual, then try to shoot in manual.

When you are ready to dig a little deeper into the technical aspects of photography, start with your camera’s manual. Learn what all those buttons actually do. Most of them will be useless to you, but knowing what they are will make them less intimidating. The better you get, the less buttons you will need. The goal is to be able to shoot in manual mode because then you will have the most control over the images you make.

 

10. Let someone take your picture.

This isn’t just a shameless plot to convince you to hire me. Of course, I highly recommend investing in professional portraits at least once a year, but here I am talking about your spouse, extended family or friends, or older children. When it comes to family photos, one parent, usually mom, ends up being the main photographer and therefore gets left out of most family photos. Some moms are comfortable with that for many reasons, and will happily go for long stretches completely absent from the family’s visual chronicle. If you are one of those people, remember that the photos are not just for you, or those you share your online albums with, but they are for your kids and their kids. They want to see you, in your prime, as the young, beautiful, busy, and multi-faceted person that you are. Right now. Not just on holidays, or after you’ve lost ten pounds. Refer back to my first tip. Family photos are about telling a story, and you are a central character in that story.

 

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As the title suggests, this is the second part of my exciting trilogy of tips for parents wanting to improve their family photography. Part 1 of the series is below or here.

I hope the first three tips were helpful and inspired you to try new things while taking photos of your kids and family this week. Here are a few more ideas to think about.

4. Go towards the light. This one assumes you are using an automatic setting and on-camera flash. If this is too basic, you’re ready for #9.

If you squint when looking at your pictures, do you see the people as dark silhouettes on a light background, or bright white faces on a black background? This is caused by pointing the subjects away from the sun (or light source), or popping a flash right onto the subject, leaving everything else in the dark. Whenever possible, use natural light to your advantage. An old trick is to hold your hand out flat but turned with your thumb up (like you’re going to shake hands). Notice what side of your hand has more light, and turn your subject’s eyes toward that light. If it’s noon on sunny day, you will want to put your family in the shade, but try to keep the background shaded as well. If you have to use the flash, back up from the person/people so the flash falls around them and not just on their nose, cheeks and forehead!

Bright sunny day at the beach. Great for tanning, not so much for photos, so I took these cuties to the shady side of the lifeguard station. The images in the center and on the right, would still be challenging when you’re using the auto setting, but they illustrate how bright it was that day.  Simply turn towards the shady wall, and the one on the left would work for most cameras.

 

5. Take a look around.

Before you click, look all around the screen or viewfinder at the entire composition of your photo. Is there a lamppost sticking out of someone’s head? A random tourist strolling by in the background? Are Junior’s feet cut off? Is Dad’s arm missing?

Here, I turned and found a cute moment between cousins. In my rush to not miss it, I snapped once and cut off a leg. Then I took a step back and got the image on the right.

Taking a second to be thoughtful and purposeful can make all the difference between a snapshot and a good portrait. And that leads me to my next point…

 

6. Shoot less.

Switching from film to digital has liberated many of us to experiment and enjoy taking many more pictures than we would have in the past when we had to worry about wasting precious film. However, it’s also given many a parent license to take a jillion photos of the same event with the thought that,  “one of those will come out.” But that leaves you with a jillion images to cull through later and still sometimes not one of those is a keeper.  Tips #5 and 6, will help you to follow #7 and 8…and you’ll have to wait until next week to get those last ones!

Have a good weekend, everyone. If you are in Jacksonville, the weather is supposed to be beautiful, so get outside and enjoy it. Keep these ideas in mind as you take photos (but not too many)! If you have questions or some success you’d like to share, email me. I’d love to hear from you. Finally, check back on Tuesday for the last few tips.

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I recently put together a list of photography tips for a group of moms that I am a part of. I thought I’d share them here with you as well, with examples of some of my own family photos.

As a family photographer and mom, I get asked often, “what kind of camera should I buy?” My stock answer is stick with what you have and make the most of it, or buy a good (but not necessarily top of line) version of whichever of the most reputable brands that you prefer. With the quality of affordable consumer cameras out there, it’s not the camera that makes good photographs, it’s the photographer.

Here are a few of my tips for parents who want to take better photographs of their kids and family.

1. Tell a story.

We don’t look through old family photos just to see what our ancestors’ faces looked like, but to learn something about them and the times and places where they lived.  Take photos of your kids, not just in their Sunday best, in the most formal room in your house, but in the clothes they live in every day, doing the things that mark this particular day or stage or of life.  Even if you just want a great head and shoulder portrait of your son with his gaptooth smile, you could take it out in his treehouse, or on his bike, and it would tell even more about what stage of his boyhood he is in. Also, think about taking photos of the objects or places that help tell your story, such as the beloved lovey, or their seat at the dining table, complete with highchair and sippy cups.

This captures the dynamic between my daughters when they were 2 and 5. The oldest clowning for the spotlight. The youngest smiling adoringly at her idol. Things have gotten more contentious since then, so I’m glad to have this to remind me.

2. Look them in the eye.

It’s a cliché for a reason. Eyes really are a window into one’s soul.  I NEVER ask subjects to smile or say cheese, but I will ask, coax, or beg to get their eyes toward my lens. Of course there are exceptions, but eyes are usually the essential element to good portraits.

Camping out under the dining table on a cold morning.

3. Skip the cheese!

As I mentioned, before, I never ask directly for a smile. I might joke, dance, or make a fool of myself, but I never say, “Smile!” Want to loose an authentic expression on a kid in no time? Ask them to say cheese. And yet, we are conditioned to do it. Even my kids sometimes say it and I always cringe and ask them not to, as if they’ve just cursed in my presence.

Here’s one that my husband caught of me (pregnant, early this year) with my girls. We were enjoying the winter sun in St. Augustine. We know he’s taking our photo, but he’s just talking with us and not asking us to stop and smile for the camera. I love how relaxed we are, even myself, who is sadly the worst in front of the camera.

Try these out, and stay tuned for more tips later this week!

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Every day of parenthood is bittersweet. This morning I discovered the cause of CA’s newly prolific drooling. A tooth. The very first one. It’s starting to break through on the top. Then I took the baby to her 4 month well visit, where the doctor started talking to me about introducing solid foods. This took me by surprise as I’d waited until 6 months with my first two girls. These are exciting little milestones, but to my surprise they brought me to tears. I got into my car at the pediatrician’s office and wept.

The gummy smile will soon have an intruder. My baby’s body is growing to need more than what just my body can provide. It was only weeks ago that this child was inside me. 18 weeks, but to me it has felt like a only a handful of days.

I’ve never been an outwardly emotional person, but as many of you can surely relate, that changed when I became a mom. I can cry at commercials or songs that I once thought were corny. I honk at the jerk who comes flying through the school zone. I realize that my baby – my last baby, as far as I know – is no longer a newborn and I lose it in the parking lot.

Those two words, last baby, have been ringing in my ears for a year now. They make me pay closer attention than I did with my first – when I was in shock at the fact that I was now a mom, and terrified of making a mistake – and my second daughter – when I was slightly overwhelmed by the challenge of caring for a baby and a 3 year old. To be a parent is to be for your child the personification of love, protection, and safety, and, at the exact same time, give them the skills, confidence, and encouragement to be able to leave you. For a night in the crib, for a day at school, and, one day, forever. This is why every day of parenthood is bittersweet. Today was simply a day when I’ve been more aware of it. This last baby of mine is constantly reminding me to slow down and take it in. Not just with her, but with each of my children.

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Is it possible that CA has already been with us for one third of a year? Here are a few of the photos that I took of her in the first few days, way back in May. I don’t think she ever quite looked like a newborn. We joke that I gave birth to six month old. She certainly never fit into anything newborn-sized, but it is amazing to see the subtle changes that have happened already. I’m doing my best to savor every nuance of babyhood with this one.

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This is what loved and happy looks like, in the form of a three month old baby boy.

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